Today's Veterinary Business

OCT 2018

Today’s Veterinary Business provides information and resources designed to help veterinarians and office management improve the financial performance of their practices, allowing them to increase the level of patient care and client service.

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Equipment Guide 2018
Today's Veterinary Business • Equipment Guide 2018 32
ULTRASOUND
Medical lighting has seen a major
advancement in recent years in the form of
light-emitting diode (LED) technology. When
you switch from halogen or tungsten technolo-
gy to LEDs in your surgery and treatment rooms,
you can expect:
• More effective patient care: LED
lamps provide brighter, whiter light
and reduce shadows, making it easier
to see a patient's tissue color. Also, LEDs
produce less heat, meaning less desic-
cation of tissue. (Hot halogen lights can
hasten tissue deterioration.)
• 80 percent less energy use and
cost:
Because LED lights are more effi-
cient at converting electricity to light,
they drastically reduce energy usage
and your bill.
• No downtime due to bulb failure:
LED lighting doesn't use traditional
bulbs, so you won't experience an
outage or have to change bulbs at
inconvenient times. Professionally
installed LED lighting lasts as much as
50,000 hours of use or more, resulting
in a lower total cost over the life of
the equipment.
As you think about making a switch to LED
lighting, you will want to keep the following
in mind.
• Installation budget:
Plan for a
one-time expense to properly install
higher-end LEDs. The investment is
worth every penny because improper
installation and cheap lights can cause
failures or, at least, reduced benefits.
You'll need to make an LED investment
only once every 10 to 15 years, so buy
the best you can afford.
• Brightness and color: LED technol-
ogy is very bright and can cause eye
fatigue. Overcome this by installing
quality LED lighting that comes with a
dimmer switch.
To see the difference for yourself, arrange
to visit a nearby clinic that has LED lighting. Your
distributor rep can help you find a practice.
Also, do a cost analysis of your electric bill,
your current bulb costs and the price you would
pay to repair your halogen system if it failed. This
alone might justify the expense of upgrading.
If your hospital's
patient monitors are five to 10 years old, you're likely missing out on potentially lifesaving
benefits offered by the latest models. Let's take a look.
• Anesthesia:
Since anesthesia affects so many patient functions, many of today's monitors go well beyond
measuring the breaths per minute and the heart rate. They provide highly accurate multiparameter data for a
total picture of a patient under anesthesia.
• Blood pressure:
If you haven't updated your BP monitor in a while, you'll be amazed at the technological
advancements that make BP readings more reliable through automation.
• ETCO2:
Measuring a patient's breathing/ventilation during anesthesia used to be tricky and expensive with
ETCO2 machines' frequent gas calibrations and fragile sensors. Today, the technology is easier to operate, more
robust and reasonably priced.
• Pulse Ox:
The new PVI (Pleth Variability Index) technology has exciting possibilities for assessing fluid status in
a more reliable way. No more "locked numbers" from losing the signal just when an animal starts to have issues.
Using outdated or underperforming monitors brings a higher risk of patient death or postsurgical complications. For
example, with kidney function:
• If a patient's ETCO2 goes above 50mm/hg for a long period, the patient can develop respiratory acidosis.
• If MAP (mean arterial pressure) drops below 60mm/Hg, the patient will not have adequate perfusion.
These problems could kill 50 percent of the kidneys and you wouldn't know it. Even postsurgery blood tests
won't show a problem. (BUN/creatinine do not start rising until 75 percent of the kidney function is lost.) So, when
the patient comes in with kidney failure at 6 years old, connecting the problem to an anesthetic event during a spay
at 1 years old is difficult.
Since you're devoted to providing the best care possible, investing in new monitor technology is well worth it. Talk
with your distributor or manufacturer's rep to evaluate the latest systems and learn about today's best practices.
While ultrasound image
quality is improving year after year, the big news these days is related to a telemedi-
cine service called scan coaching. Here's how it works.
• Several advanced ultrasound units allow you to contact a specialist or technical expert who "remotes in" and
views the ultrasound image. The professional then coaches you on how to interpret the scan so you determine
what's happening with the patient.
• Some units have split-screen capability during the remote session. One side shows what the image should look
like. Meanwhile, the coach guides you to move the probe until your image looks like the one on the "sample"
side. This feature helps you quickly build confidence in reading ultrasound scans for various patients.
• Ultimately, remote coaching improves patient care because it improves your ability to diagnose beyond what
you can see on a digital X-ray.
Look for ultrasound companies that offer training along with the ultrasound purchase. Another option is to pay for
a training class, such as basic abdominal scanning, so you can test-drive the latest ultrasound units, know what a good
image looks like and get familiar with moving the probe.
Are you ready to buy your first ultrasound system, replace an outdated one or add more units? Keep the following in mind:
• Low-cost units might have lower image quality. When you're learning how to diagnose conditions using ultra-
sound, a poor image can make the determination much harder.
• Spending more for a high-quality unit that offers scan coaching can be worth the expense. You'll quickly gain
expertise that you can turn into extra revenue as you offer the service to more clients.
LIGHTING
MONITORS